Questions about self-organisation: Boxwars
Boxwars
Answers by Damien Deadly / Boxwars UK
> What are the aims of the project you are involved in?
To bring people together, and become involved in a stimulating activity that people have not experienced before. We aim to bring as many people as possible through a creative process to a battle between cardboard clad warriors, and subsequent destruction.
> How is the project organised?
A date and location is decided. Work is put into self promotion through paste ups, flyering and online networking. We circulate interest via the website, to regular participants and also try to reach out to new people. We book bands/ music also, and market the event to a particular scene.
> How do you support the work financially and what impact does this have on your project?
Because of the controversial aspects of the event, (ie. Promoting non controlled violence) it has been difficult to get sponsorship. The events have so far been based within commercial live music events where a line up of bands is organized with our cardboard battle taking place with the final band. Money therefore comes from tickets purchased for the event.
> What do you feel you have achieved, and what are the problems you face?
We have achieved in expanding the Boxwars movement to a new continent. We have also developed the concept into an activity that is associated with live music. We have introduced the club/ gig environment to Boxwars, and therefore enabled more diversity within events.
> Are there any past projects/models which have inspired you?
Flash mobbing and other pointless, illogical activities that are now widely communicated on the internet, are big influences. Other influences are the Situationists, the Punk Movement and the film Fight Club. Boxwars is in itself illogical, and we have no agenda. Though I would say that it is impossible for anything to be neutral, Boxwars can be aligned with other social movements or ideas, but the aims of Boxwars are neutral.
Like the Situationists, and any other absurdist art forms before them, Boxwars is a contradiction to ideas of logic and human progress. The process of building and destroying things is something enthused by these absurdist movements.
The participative violence is similar to Fight Club, where some people may use it as a release of frustration. This is not to say all people do though. Similarly, the Punk movement of the 70’s and 80’s has the violence inherit in Boxwars that is something radical and extreme as a spectacle.
> What are your hopes for the future?
Cardboard revolution of course. The cardboard will spread and fighting participants will increase until there are no laws, goverments or institutions—Just millions of cardboard clad people wandering the Earth in search of the next war.